Physical Violence against Older Adults: A 7-Year Retrospective Evaluation from a University Hospital s Department of Forensic Medicine

This study tries to understand the differences in body experience between victims of sexual abuse and physical abuse. Ninety-eight women completed questionnaires that measured personal information, body-image aberration, body sensitivity and control, and body investment. Findings indicated that victims of sexual abuse demonstrate less body maintenance and protection in addition to greater injury to body sensitivity and control than victims of physical abuse. Moreover, comparing victims of sexual abuse to physical abuse, findings revealed that only victims of sexual abuse report body-image aberrations. Thus, sexual and physical abuse should be addressed discretely because each has differential effects on bodily attitudes of victims.

Childhood history of abuse and child abuse potential in adolescent mothers: a longitudinal study

Physical abuse is one of the most important public health problems, but little is known about physical abuse of cancer patients. The objects of this study are (1) to identify whether cancer patients have sustained physical abuse; (2) to explore clinical characteristics of the abused patients. We reviewed 584 cancer patients referred to our psychiatry clinic by a cancer center hospital and investigated whether there were victims of physical abuse among these patients. We also investigated psychiatric characteristics of the abused patients. Of these 584 patients, three patients were recognized as victims of physical abuse at the time of referral. The perpetrator of physical abuse was their husband (domestic violence) in all three cases. All three patients had sustained physical abuse from their husbands for years before being diagnosed with cancer. In addition to physical abuse, all three patients had sustained emotional abuse (e.g., threat or intimidation) from their husbands. Psychiatric diagnoses of all three patients fulfilled the DSM-IV criteria for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and the traumatic event was mainly physical abuse by their husbands. Oncologists and psychiatrists should pay greater attention to the psychosocial and environmental problems of cancer patients and inquire about the presence of physical abuse in suspected cases. Medical staff should also know that early multidisciplinary interventions in addition to cancer treatments are needed for victims of physical abuse among cancer patients and that these interventions are necessary to improve compliance with treatment and proper decision making.

To determine the prevalence of domestic violence, childhood abuse and sexual assault experienced by women attending general practitioners.A cross-sectional, questionnaire-based prevalence survey.15 general practices in metropolitan Melbourne between November 1993 and February 1994.3026 women over the age of 18 attending for a consultation.The response rate was 72%. Over a quarter of women in relationships had been victims of physical or emotional partner abuse in the previous year, one in 10 having experienced severe physical violence. Thirteen percent of women had experienced rape or attempted rape, 10% had been severely beaten during childhood and 28% had experienced childhood sexual abuse involving physical contact. The abuse had been disclosed to the woman's doctor by only 27% of those who had experienced partner or childhood physical abuse (mostly because the doctor had never asked) and 9% of those who had experienced sexual abuse (mostly because the woman did not see it as relevant to the consultation).There is a high prevalence of physical, sexual and emotional violence against women as well as poor communication about this violence to their general practitioners.Medical practitioners should be more proactive in questioning women about violence.This article concerns a cross-sectional, questionnaire-based prevalence survey that was carried out in November 1993 and February 1994 to determine the prevalence of domestic violence, childhood abuse and sexual assault experienced by women attending general practitioners in Melbourne, Australia. This study would also provide doctors accurate information on the extent of the problem. A total sample of 3026 women over the age of 18 attending a consultation was included in the study. The questionnaire asked about experiences of sexual abuse and domestic violence. Of the 3026 questionnaires distributed, only 2181 were returned giving a response rate of 72%. Over a quarter of women in relationships had been victims of physical or emotional partner abuse in the previous year, and 1 in 10 had experienced severe physical violence. The 13% of women had experienced rape or attempted rape, 10% had been severely beaten during childhood, and 28% experienced childhood sexual abuse involving physical contact. The abuse had been disclosed to the woman's doctor by only 27% of those who had experienced partner or childhood physical abuse and 9% of those who had experienced sexual abuse. This study shows that there is a high prevalence of physical, sexual and emotional violence against women as well as poor communication about this violence to their general practitioners. Furthermore, this study suggests that medical practitioners must be more proactive in questioning women about violence.

This study explored the prevalence of victims of abuse and the therapeutic progression among women who sought treatment for drug addiction. A sample of 180 addicted Spanish women was assessed. Information was collected on the patients' lifetime history of abuse (psychological, physical, and/or sexual), socio-demographic factors, consumption variables, and psychological symptoms. Of the total sample, 74.4% ( n = 134) of the addicted women had been victims of abuse. Psychological abuse affected 66.1% ( n = 119) of the patients, followed by physical abuse (51.7%; n = 93) and sexual abuse (31.7%; n = 57). Compared with patients who had not been abused, the addicted women with histories of victimization scored significantly higher on several European version of the Addiction Severity Index (EuropASI) and psychological variables. Specifically, physical abuse and sexual abuse were related to higher levels of severity of addiction. Regarding therapeutic progression, the highest rate of dropout was observed among victims of sexual abuse (63.5%; n = 33), followed by victims of physical abuse (48.9%; n = 23). Multivariate analysis showed that medical and family areas of the EuropASI, as well as violence problems and suicide ideation, were the main variables related to physical and/or sexual abuse. Moreover, women without abuse and with fewer family problems presented the higher probability of treatment completion. The implications of these results for further research and clinical practice are discussed.

Background Childhood sexual and physical abuse has been related to subsequent offending behaviour in non‐disabled individuals as well as people with intellectual disabilities, but there is a dearth of research examining the link between these two characteristics and psychological, behavioural and psychiatric symptoms amongst sex offenders with intellectual disabilities. The aim of this study was to examine the relationship between childhood abuse, history of psychological and psychiatric symptoms, and patterns of violence in later offending.Methods Twenty sex offenders with intellectual disabilities were compared with 20 non‐disabled sex offenders. The Kaufman Brief Intelligence Test, the Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scales, and a structured clinical interview were administered to participants.Results Offenders with ID were more likely to report that they had been the victim of physical abuse during childhood; aggressive behaviour during adulthood was related to a history of having been the victim of childhood physical abuse, or exposure to family violence. Participants in the ID group were more likely to be diagnosed with depression, post‐traumatic stress disorder and aggressive behaviour. A history of childhood exposure to violence was related to the development of later symptoms, for both ID and non‐disabled offenders. Perpetrators with ID who had been physically abused during their developmental years were significantly more likely to threaten or use violence during the offence.Conclusions The study suggests that childhood abuse may be related to severity of the crime, and to the development of later psychological and psychiatric symptoms. Longitudinal research in this area and a larger sample size are needed to clarify and extend the present findings.

Background: Physical elder abuse is common and has serious health consequences. Little is known, however, about the patterns of health care utilization among these victims, including whether opportunities may exist for earlier identification and intervention. Our goal was to describe Emergency Department (ED) utilization known physical elder abuse victims compared with non-victims. Methods: We used Medicare insurance claims to examine ED utilization patterns among a well-characterized cohort of 139 known physical elder abuse victims in the year before abuse was identified and compared this to control subjects matched on age, sex, race, and residential zip code. Results: Physical elder abuse victims were significantly more likely than control subjects to visit the ED (47.5% vs. 35.9%, p=0.01) during the year before identification and to have at least one visit for an injury-related complaint (14.4% vs. 8.3%, p=0.03). Victims were also more likely to have multiple visits (18.7% vs. 14.6%, p=0.24), visit multiple EDs (7.9% vs. 6.7%, p=0.63), or be high frequency utilizers (≥4 visits, 3.6% vs. 2.7%, p=0.58), but differences did not reach statistical significance. The most common diagnoses in ED visits among victims were: open wound of knee/ankle, exacerbation of chronic bronchitis, pneumonia, and chest pain. Conclusion: This work provides preliminary evidence that physical elder abuse victims use the ED more frequently and potentially have different patterns of utilization than other older adults. We plan to further characterize these different patterns to potentially to use them to develop tools for earlier identification.

The authors analyzed interview responses of patients at a prenatal care clinic to explore whether women who had been victims of sexual and physical abuse were more likely than non-victimized women to have experienced a sexually transmitted disease (STD). A consecutive sample of 774 prenatal patients of a large health department in North Carolina were interviewed concerning a variety of health issues, including violence and STDs. Logistic regression analysis was used to model the women's STD status as a function of their experiences of sexual and physical abuse, controlling for several potentially confounding factors. Thirty percent of the women reported having experienced at least one STD, with the most common infections being chlamydia and gonorrhea. Twenty-eight percent of the women reported having been victims of abuse; 16% reported physical abuse only, while 12% reported both physical and sexual abuse. The majority of violence was domestic in nature, perpetrated by the victims' husbands, boyfriends, male friends, and relatives. After controlling for confounding variables, the authors found that women who reported both physical and sexual abuse were significantly more likely to have experienced STDs than non-victims (odds ratio [OR] = 2.25; 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.37, 3.69). The logistic regression analysis also showed a relationship of borderline statistical significance between non-sexual physical abuse and STDs. Health care providers should routinely screen patients for both abuse and STDs, and they should assist identified women in accessing appropriate health, social, and legal services.

Although many studies have shown that victims of child abuse have an increased vulnerability to revictimization in intimate relationships, the underlying mechanisms are not yet sufficiently well understood. Therefore, this study aimed at examining this relationship for both sexual and physical forms of violence as well as investigating the potential mediating role of attitudes toward sexual and physical intimate partner violence (IPV). Also, the potential moderating role of gender was explored. Sexual and physical child abuse and IPV victimization in adulthood as well as attitudes toward the respective form of IPV were assessed among 716 participants (448 female) in an online survey. The path analyses showed that child sexual abuse was positively linked to sexual IPV victimization among both women and men, whereas child physical abuse was positively associated with physical IPV victimization among women only. Furthermore, the relationship between both forms of child abuse and IPV victimization was mediated through more supportive attitudes toward the respective forms of IPV, but only among men. This study provides novel insights regarding the links between sexual and physical child abuse and revictimization in adulthood, suggesting that supporting attitudes toward IPV may be seen as vulnerability factor for revictimization. The moderating role of gender is especially discussed.

Marital rape is a concept that many find difficult to comprehend. Until the Oregon trial of John Rideout, who was accused of rape by his wife Greta, there was little discussion of marital rape by the general public or by researchers and counselors skilled in dealing with other types of rape cases. However, the extensive media coverage given the Rideout case has raised a number of questions about this subject. For example, what actions should be defined as rape when the acts involve husband and wife? When women are forced to have sexual relations with their husbands, do they accept this as part of their marital duties or does the use of force have long-term negative consequences for the marriage? And finally, in what types of marriages does forced sex or marital rape occur? This paper attempts to answer some of these questions based upon interview data gathered from nearly 300 women.

The vast majority of elder abuse (EA) victims remain hidden from formal institutional response systems. Guided by the Behavioral Model of Health Services Use, this study examined factors that facilitate or impede formal help-seeking among victims of elder emotional abuse, physical abuse, and sexual abuse. Data came from a national, population-based EA study in the United States with a representative sample (n = 304) of past-year victims. Gold-standard strategies were used to assess EA subtypes. Multivariate logistic regression was conducted to identify help-seeking facilitators/barriers. Help-seeking through reporting to police or other authorities occurred among only 15.4% of EA victims. Help-seeking was higher among victims of physical abuse, poly-victimization, or those with a perpetrator having prior police trouble. Help-seeking was lower among victims who were dependent upon their perpetrator and in cases where the perpetrator had a large friendship network. This study highlights the hidden nature of EA as a problem in our society and the need to develop strategies that incorporate victim, perpetrator, and victim-perpetrator relationship factors to promote greater help-seeking among victims.

Identifying Injury Patterns Associated With Physical Elder Abuse: Analysis of Legally Adjudicated Cases

Child abuse and neglect have repeatedly been shown to be risks for psychiatric and personality disorders. However, much of this evidence is based on retrospective reports of adults. In addition, little is known about the developmental course of psychopathology among those exposed to child maltreatment. In this study, we report mental disorders assessed from early childhood to adulthood in those later identified as victims of abuse or neglect by official or self-report. Findings show elevated rates of mental disorders and symptoms in each of four groups relative to the normative sample. Groups included those who had been victims of physical abuse or neglect according to official report and those who had been victims of physical or sexual abuse by self-report. As expected, the maltreated groups were quite different demographically from the community comparison sample, especially those with official reports. The group with retrospective self-reports of physical abuse differed only modestly from the comparison group on the symptom and disorder measures, while the sexually abused group showed the most consistently elevated patterns, even after controls for demographic differences were taken into account. The disorder and symptom patterns differed both by group and by age: neglect cases showed a partial remission in adulthood, while official physical abuse cases showed an increasingly consolidated pattern of antisocial and impulsive behavior.

We examine differential effects of mental pain and suicidal tendencies in female victims who have been sexually and physically abused, hypothesizing that sexual abuse victims report more mental pain and suicidal tendencies than physical abuse victims. A group of 98 women completed questionnaires that measured mental pain, suicidal tendencies and thoughts, and demographic details. Sexual abuse victims suffered more mental pain than physical abuse victims while the physical abuse victims demonstrated more repulsion by life than sexual abuse victims. Only sexual abuse victims demonstrated less attraction to life and only physical abuse victims showed more attraction to death.

ABSTRACTIn the present paper we examine the association between physical abuse victimization in childhood and violent criminal behavior in the transition from adolescence to adulthood (TAA). Of central interest is whether that association is indirect, through the impact of abuse victimization on alcohol and drug use. We employ a statistical test for indirect effects, using a design that also applies Savage and Wozniak’s (2016) “differential etiology of violence” standard. The data suggest that the effect of physical abuse on violence in the TAA is partially indirect, mediated by alcohol and drug use. A control for nonviolent offending is applied to build confidence that the dynamic between abuse victimization and substance use is a differential predictor of violence.